More planting....

I put in a few more cool season crops tonight ever though I am a little under the weather again. Not sure what the deal is this spring but I have been ill like three times. I think I need to eat more of my spinach!

The half barrel was the first thing to be planted. I am growing an assortment of things in it that I will show below:

three early jersey wakefield cabbages, seed from Yan @
Soggy Creek Seed Co. This is the variety that grows like
a cone head.

Filling in around the cabbage will be black seeded simpson
lettuce from seed shared by Alex. I seeded quite a few to
utilize the thinning's as they grow.

In the center I planted a tuscano kale. I seeded quite a
few kale but only two germinated. It should still be good
though, a person only needs so much kale.

The last of the brassica's to be plant was a row of four Jade Cross Hybrid Brussels Sprouts. This will be my third time trying brussels sprouts after two previous failures. I am hopeful this will be the year that I harvest some reasonable sprouts!

I also planted up a cell pack of iceburg lettuce (again from Alex) and buttercrunch lettuce. They will be grown in the polytunnel and planted out after a few weeks.

To ends things off a photo of this beetle that was in the pepper plants. It looks like a ladybug but it is more elongated and more pink then red. Any ideas what it is?

Grow Room Update

I realized tonight that I had not done an update on the grow room for the entire 2010 season. Starting tomorrow I am going to start placing many of the plants out in the poly tunnel during the day so soon there will be nothing left to post about. Almost everything under the light now are seedlings. All the over wintered plants have been either moved to the spare room, the poly tunnel or just outdoors. Nights have been pretty warm for the most part so they have not been affected. On nights near freezing I have been placing the plants in the shed over night. Here goes photos of most things growing:

Burgundy & purple impatiens. I grew these from pelleted seed and they have grown very well. There is about a flat worth of them growing.

Here are all the sweet & hot peppers. Again about a flat worth are growing. They are really starting to get large so I will start placing them out in the tunnel on warm days.

This is the second attempt at an early tomato after the first one died. It is coming along nicely and I am hopefully the later start will not make much of a difference. I think I may plant it out by the weekend and on cold nights just wrap it up.

These are a bunch of cutting I have taken for outdoor planters. Most of them are geraniums.

Here we have blue wave petunia's also grown from pelleted seed. I wish I started them at the same time as the impatiens because they are growing slowly. There is still about a month to go before I plant them outdoors so hopefully they will catch up.

Dahlberg seedlings. Never grown these before, they have a yellow daisy like flower and will be planted with the petunias. Going for a blue, purple, yellow combination in the pots this year.

Snapdragons from Granny. Never grown these before either. They are a mix of colours and will be planted in the front perennial garden. They badly need thinning which I will do soon.

Basil growing along side many other herbs. Funny thing is I always grow herbs but rarely use them. Maybe this year will be the year.

Here are all my tomatoes that I started not to long ago. I forgot to take the doom off soon enough so they are all a little stretch. There are about 50 growing, half for me and half for my sister. I am hoping with the later start they will not need potting up at all. They also need thinning.

This the the biggest of the two brugmansia sanguinea I started from seed back in January. I am hoping for blossoms in the first year!

Similar to the plant above, here we have a bunch of double yellow datura. They will be grown in outdoor planters.

Last but not least here are all the melons, cucumbers, winter squash and summer squash that I sowed on the 26th. I am sprouting them indoors and then they will be out in the tunnel during the day until planting. I also started all the beans in rootainers on the same day, no picture of them but they are on top of the fridge sprouting.

The Forest has Come Alive Again

Decided to take a break from veggie blogging today. Instead I am going to show some photos I have taken in the woods during the past few weeks. The forest has come alive again and under closure inspection there is a myriad of interesting things to observes. Many of them only showing themselves for a short time before retreating below ground again until next spring.

Trout Lily mass. Taken on a drizzly day, they only open for the sun.



Trout Lilies with a native bee to the right.



Canadian Wild Ginger. They flower on the ground to attract ground pollinators.



White Trillium. Our provincial flower.




Red Trillium



Red Fern Frond



Native Foamflower



May Apple



Marsh Marigold



Downy Yellow Violet




Bloodroot

Forest Ruins

Onions planted

Here are all the seeded onions just before transplant. They were started Jan 22 and have been out in the polytunnel for about a month now.

I went kind of crazy with my ruler and some cardboard to make this planting jib. The thick lines are 9 per sqf and the thin lines are 16 per sqf. I just simply stuck a pencil in the corresponding hole to mark out all the planting positions. When the garden is in and I have more time I will make some wooden ones.

Here they are all planted out 9 per sqf using the jig. It worked pretty well and certainly speed the process up. The pencil made a perfect hole that the onion seedlings were planted right into. In total I planted out 84 onions in the photo above as well as 13 multiplier onions in another area. Here are all the varieties I am trying:

Utah Sweet Spanish Onions from seed shared by Hometown Seeds

Red Long of Tropea Onions from seed shared by Daphne

Amish Bottle Onions

Dutch Sets

Red Onion Sets

Multiplier Onions

Lastly these are onions from last fall. I had a few to small to
harvest so I planted them out together before the ground froze.
They have sized up nicely and will be used as green onions.

Peas are in

Here are all the peas before transplant. They were sown March 25th in rootrainers, they were germinated indoors and then placed out in the polytunnel shortly after germination. In the tunnel they have grown to approx. 6-8 inches tall and have developed a nice root system that you will see below.

The rootrainers offer a good soil volume and direct root growth inwards. I must say I am rather pleased with the rootrainers so far. Next up I will sow all the beans in these containers and will see how they do.

Above are all the areas I am growing peas in this season. Just as before the beds were turned, amended with compost & kelp meal and then planted. This year I am using a combination of sticks & trellis netting to grow the peas up. Below I will go into detail about each pea variety:

Cascadia Sugar Snap Pea from seed shared by Laura.
I tried snap peas for the first time last year and loved
them. I am looking forward to growing a bigger crop this
year.

Victorian Climbing Pea from seed shared by Gary.
These grow 8' tall so I planted them under my
8' trellis. Later in the season I will companion plant
them with butternut squash.

Oregon Sugar Snow Pea from seed shared by Miss M.
This will be my first attempt at growing snow peas.

The last pea variety I am trying this year is
Opal Creek Golden Snap Pea. As the name
suggests they have golden pods and I've
read they are not quite as sweet as the green.

So that is 2 1/2 beds done. Tomorrow I will put in the onion bed and then the potato bed soon after that. Then a bit of a reprieve before planting out celeriac, celery, carrots, beets, parsnips tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, beans, squash, melons & cucumbers. I'm tired already... :-)